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Full-Text Articles in Law
No-Fault Marital Dissolution: The Bitter Triumph Of Naked Divorce, J Herbie Difonzo
No-Fault Marital Dissolution: The Bitter Triumph Of Naked Divorce, J Herbie Difonzo
San Diego Law Review
In this Article, the author examines the origins of the no-fault divorce movement, concluding that the abandonment of fault grounds was conceived as a conservative measure intended to facilitate the reversal of the escalating divorce rate and to replace traditional marital dissolution with therapeutic divorce. This reform collapsed at mid-point, achieving only the jettisoning of divorce grounds. The author argues that an unintended consequence of the reform battle was the transformation from mutual consent divorce, the operating milieu for most of the twentieth century, into divorce on demand. The author concludes that this transformation has resulted in a significant loss …
Epstein's Premises, Evan Tsen Lee
Epstein's Premises, Evan Tsen Lee
San Diego Law Review
This Article criticizes Richard Epstein's argument that Congress should repeal Title VII expressed in his book Forbidden Grounds: The Case Against Employment Discrimination. The author's criticisms of Epstein's argument are the product of disagreement with some of Epstein's premises, and disagreement with some of Epstein's choices about where to stop his analyses. The author disputes Epstein's premise that governmental intervention into otherwise accessible markets is justifiable only in cases of force or fraud. The author also notes some of Epstein's empirical suppositions that are inconsistent with one another.
Standing Firm, On Forbidden Grounds, Richard A. Epstein
Standing Firm, On Forbidden Grounds, Richard A. Epstein
San Diego Law Review
This introductory Article to the Title VII Symposium contained in this issue of the San Diego Law Review addresses the critiques leveled at the book Forbidden Grounds: The Case Against Employment Discrimination Laws. Richard Epstein, the author of the book, recognizes the disagreement expressed in the Articles in the Symposium, and attempts to defend his thesis in this Article. He argued in Forbidden Grounds that the best set of overall social outcomes would come from eliminating antidiscrimination laws which prohibit employer discrimination on the grounds of race, creed, sex, age, handicap, or anything else. In this Article, he addresses several …
Epstein's Challenge To The Civil Rights Regime, W. B. Allen
Epstein's Challenge To The Civil Rights Regime, W. B. Allen
San Diego Law Review
This Article takes a close look at the government's determination of the substantive meaning of nondiscrimination in order to better evaluate the relation between the current practice of the civil rights regime and the alternative suggested by Richard Epstein in his book Forbidden Grounds: The Case Against Employment Discrimination Laws. It also analyzes the "limit condition view" of government, namely that the government may in no way discriminate, and everyone cannot be prevented from discriminating. The author concludes that defenders of the civil rights regime must engage Epstein's argument, because failing to do so will be to fail either to …
Alternative Grounds: Epstein's Discrimination Analysis In Other Market Settings, Ian Ayres
Alternative Grounds: Epstein's Discrimination Analysis In Other Market Settings, Ian Ayres
San Diego Law Review
This Article focuses on how Richard Epstein's discrimination analysis in his book Forbidden Grounds: The Case Against Employment Discrimination Laws plays out in four other market contexts. The author analyzes historical labor markets (circa 1964), public accommodations, housing, and new car markets. He concludes that applying Epstein's theory to these different market settings exposes limitations of Epstein's analysis.
Licensing Laws: A Historical Example Of The Use Of Government Regulatory Power Against African Americans, David E. Bernstein
Licensing Laws: A Historical Example Of The Use Of Government Regulatory Power Against African Americans, David E. Bernstein
San Diego Law Review
This Article addresses how the legacy of government policy has been a large factor in the economic subjugation of black Americans between Reconstructionist and the modern Civil Rights era. Specifically, this Article displays how white interest groups used occupational licensing laws to stifle black economic progress, and how these laws were used to prevent blacks from competing with established white skilled workers. The author notes that Richard Epstein with his book Forbidden Grounds: The Case Against Employment Discrimination Laws has done the legal community a great service by reminding it that the source of some of the economic disparity between …
Lonely Libertarian: One Man's View Of Antidiscrimination Law, Lea Brilmayer
Lonely Libertarian: One Man's View Of Antidiscrimination Law, Lea Brilmayer
San Diego Law Review
In his book Forbidden Grounds: The Case Against Employment Discrimination Laws, Richard Epstein attacks antidiscrimination law from three different philosophical points of view: utilitarian, libertarian, and freedom of contract. The author of this Article addresses each of these philosophies, and argues that none of these arguments is compelling as applied to a legal regime as popular as Epstein admits core antidiscrimination law to be. This Article points out inconsistencies in Epstein's view of the public's acceptance of antidiscrimination laws as being silly.
The Discrimination Shibboleth, Andrew Kull
The Discrimination Shibboleth, Andrew Kull
San Diego Law Review
This Article explores a more conservative viewpoint than Richard Epstein's view that all employment antidiscrimination laws should be repealed in his book Forbidden Grounds: The Case Against Employment Discrimination. This Article focuses on the distinctions between current antidiscrimination laws and those of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. While the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited discrimination on the basis of race and sex, current laws prohibit discrimination on many other grounds. The author argues that these new laws constitute new policy choices, and they impose more costs than the traditional laws.
Market Affirmative Action, Robert Cooter
Market Affirmative Action, Robert Cooter
San Diego Law Review
This Article applies the economic theory of regulation to laws forbidding discrimination or requiring affirmative action. It argues for using transferable rights in order to achieve diversity rather than quotas. Based on economic theories, the Article finds that the most efficient remedies for discrimination are the ones already developed by economists for other problems. The author suggests that discriminatory cartels can be prohibited or undermined, discriminatory signals can be overcome by supplementing market information, and external effects of prejudice can be internalized by tax subsidies. He concludes that perfect competition causes discriminators to pay for segregation, and some current antidiscrimination …
Reality, Drew S. Days, Iii
Reality, Drew S. Days, Iii
San Diego Law Review
This Article applies the economic theory of regulation to laws forbidding discrimination or requiring affirmative action. It argues for using transferable rights in order to achieve diversity rather than quotas. Based on economic theories, the Article finds that the most efficient remedies for discrimination are the ones already developed by economists for other problems. The author suggests that discriminatory cartels can be prohibited or undermined, discriminatory signals can be overcome by supplementing market information, and external effects of prejudice can be internalized by tax subsidies. He concludes that perfect competition causes discriminators to pay for segregation, and some current antidiscrimination …
Epstein On His Own Grounds, Richard H. Mcadams
Epstein On His Own Grounds, Richard H. Mcadams
San Diego Law Review
This Article criticizes Richard Epstein's thesis in his book Forbidden Grounds: The Case against Employment Discrimination. The Article argues that Epstein fails to follow through on his own terms. The author expresses disagreement with Epstein's invocation of Thomas Hobbes without considering the Hobbesian argument for Title VII. Mr. McAdams also notes that Epstein relies on economic analysis without disclosing its dependence on controversial empirical assumptions. The author uncovers Epstein's other inconsistencies: his empirical claims, particularly about social norms, where Epstein does not apply the standards of criticism to supporting evidence that he applies to contrary evidence.
Learning To Love Japan: Social Norms And Market Incentives, J. Mark Ramseyer
Learning To Love Japan: Social Norms And Market Incentives, J. Mark Ramseyer
San Diego Law Review
This Article applies Japanese market behavior to Richard Epstein's theories in his book Forbidden Grounds: The Case Against Employment Discrimination. The author uses Japan to argue that economic incentives need not matter, and that whatever incentives markets and laws may provide, people may still ignore them. This Article suggests that if independent social norms can sustain systematically unprofitable behavior in Japan, then maybe they would have sustained Jim Crow policies in the American south. If Japanese routinely ignore economic incentives to perpetuate social norms, then whites might have ignored the market advantage to hiring African Americans and discriminated against their …
Was The Corruption Of Civil Rights Law Inevitable, Christopher T. Wonnell
Was The Corruption Of Civil Rights Law Inevitable, Christopher T. Wonnell
San Diego Law Review
This Article accepts Richard Epstein's premise that civil rights laws have become corrupt set forth in his book Forbidden Grounds: The Case Against Employment Discrimination. Once this corruption is recognized, this Article asks two questions about the change in focus of the antidiscrimination laws: (1) Was it inevitable that the antidiscrimination laws would follow this course?; and (2) If it was inevitable, should we live with the resulting costs, or bite the bullet and repeal antidiscrimination laws in the private economy? This Article discusses considerations pertinent to such answers.